


If I Follow the Starlight

by DownToTheSea



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/pseuds/DownToTheSea
Summary: Trapped inside Balthamos's memories by an unknown power, Balthamos and Baruch relive the events of his life before meeting Baruch, the angelic rebellion, and the celestial war.
Relationships: Balthamos/Baruch
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a Bad Things Happen fill in my series of unrelated B/B fics, but then it got a little away from me haha, so I decided to post it as its own story! I've been meaning to fill out Balthamos's backstory for a while, so I'm really excited.
> 
> Title is from the song "The Balancer's Eye" by Lord Huron (please look up the lyrics if you want to cry about Balthamos) and this was also probably unconsciously inspired at least in part by the variety of excellent Good Omens fics with a similar premise. As a warning, this will most likely get somewhat dark in later chapters, but I will keep the tags updated as best I can.
> 
> Enjoy! <3

Baruch's eyes opened to blinding, featureless white. He looked around, disoriented. Where was he, and how had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was taking shelter for the night with Balthamos on an enemy-occupied world, hiding in a hollow underneath a dead tree's roots and curling up to rest. Had they been captured?

He fought down surging panic at the thought: Balthamos in the cruel hands of the enemy, and himself face-to-face with his former brother. He could still feel Balthamos in the back of his head as always, but his head was swimming too much to pinpoint him, the connection vague and dreamlike. Trying to focus, he took a few faltering steps. He was in some kind of massive room, but so empty that it seemed to stretch on for eternity. Balthamos was nowhere in sight.

Perhaps it was a dream after all, but this place felt far too real for that. Angels didn't experience dreams in the same way humans did; theirs were vaguer and foggier, farther away. Surely nothing as crisp as this.

“Balthamos?” he dared to call. His voice bounced back to him from the distant blank walls. “Balthamos?”

Worry mounting, he began to hurry across the room, though where he was going he couldn't say. There were no obvious doors, but surely there must be an exit somewhere. His footsteps sounded hollow, and he couldn't determine if the floor was made of stone or something else, something with less substance.

He reached what he had thought was the end of the room, only to discover a bend in the wall that functioned as a passage of sorts. It led to another empty room.

Baruch stopped, hearing footsteps behind him, but when he turned to look there was no one there. When he turned back, the room was no longer empty.

It was piled high with books and scrolls and parchment, reaching up to what he thought was the ceiling, but it was hard to tell; it didn't end so much as fade out into a hazy, obscuring cloud. There was a door now, a vast arch in the side of the wall, with nearly imperceptible carvings running its length. Instead of the blank white void, everything was now pale and translucent, with diluted light pulsing through the floor and walls like a heartbeat. He moved further in to investigate.

A small noise caught his attention as he went past another massive stack of parchment. He turned, and got another shock. Balthamos was nestled in the middle of a makeshift aisle, but though his features were the same, he was unmistakably younger: so, so much younger than Baruch knew him. So much younger that if he hadn't known better, and it hadn't been for the gold-tinged white wings folded behind him, he might almost have thought he was human.

Baruch took a step towards him without thinking. Balthamos was over eleven thousand years old; surely this Balthamos couldn't be more than fifty. If he was even that; his eyes were still bright and warm, still the same as Baruch knew and loved, but so much more open, so free of pain that Baruch's own eyes stung with tears. The stubborn, defensive set of his chin was barely in evidence. He looked… relaxed. His wings shimmered. Baruch had never seen them do that before.

He took another step. “Balthamos,” he said unsteadily. It was him, of course; but such a different version of him. What had happened to  _ his  _ Balthamos? Unless this truly was a dream...

Balthamos didn't notice him. He was absorbed in reading one of the scrolls, held open delicately in his gentle hands, which Baruch had never seen splashed so liberally with ink as they were now. The noise from earlier was his wings brushing against the pile behind him. If he wasn't careful, he would bring the whole place down on his head.

“Balthamos?” Baruch tried again. He found himself wishing he would wake up soon, but at the same time captivated by this odd, vibrant vision.

“He isn't going to hear you.”

Baruch spun. There was Balthamos again, but the one he knew: older, sadder, infinitely beloved. His arms were crossed, and he was frowning at his younger self.

“Balthamos,” he breathed, and darted over to embrace him before he could let himself worry that he would dissolve away from his arms like the dream this all probably was. But Balthamos was comfortingly solid, and he did smile at Baruch when they pulled back, though he was still tense.

"My dear. I am glad to see you safe."

"And I you, but I would feel much better knowing where we were,” Baruch said. "Is this even real? You cannot be in two places at once."

"...Not  _ precisely  _ real," Balthamos said. "I do not know how or why we are here, but I recognize what it is. This is a memory, not a dream. My memory, specifically."

"Your… I have never seen this place before in your thoughts."

Balthamos's lips were pressed into a tight, thin line. "That is because I do my utmost to never think of it."

“Balthamos," he said quietly. "Is this place what I think it is?"

"Yes."

"And that is you, before…"

"Before my single, ill-fated attempt at courage, yes." Balthamos didn't sound regretful, but he did sound bitter, and there was so much remembered pain in his voice alone that Baruch judged it necessary to throw his arms around him again. He felt Balthamos relax slightly.

"Why are his wings like that?" Baruch asked, trying to distract him.

"Oh… That is what they are like for very young angels. The leftover Dust of our formation still clinging to us. It fades after a few decades."

"Mine didn't look like that."

Balthamos smiled faintly. "That is because when you became an angel, you had already been alive for many years. All I did was… anchor you, I suppose you could say.”

Baruch looked back and forth between the young Balthamos, with his shimmering golden wings, and his Balthamos. "But that means…"

At this point in time, Balthamos had to be younger than Baruch had been when he became an angel. No wonder he looked so different.

"Thirty?" he guessed.

Balthamos took another look at his former self, grimacing. "Close, though nearer twenty, I think."

They watched as the other Balthamos tilted his head over his shoulder and looked at his sparkling golden wings.

"I was quite vain at the time," Balthamos said rather loftily _.  _ "I never wanted it to wear off. I was too foolish to realize that it marked me as young and naive. All I could see was the beauty… I failed to realize many things, then." Now his voice was sad.

Baruch took his hand, holding it gently.

"Thank you, dearest," Balthamos murmured. His eyes were fixed on himself as a new, shining, contented angel.

Baruch didn't need to ask what had happened to have worked such a change in him. Balthamos's age, and their surroundings, told him all.

Baruch squeezed his hand. "Should we leave? Try to find answers somewhere else?"

"If we left this room, it would only get emptier and foggier the farther we went. These are my memories, and… I did not venture out much."

As if on cue, the young Balthamos's head jerked up from his scroll. He dropped it on the floor and scrambled to his feet, then thought better of it and bent down to retrieve and reroll the scroll and place it carefully on the nearest stack. Despite the gravity of the situation, Baruch was amused to see that he once again craned his neck back and rustled his wings with a pleased look before darting out the aisle and past them.

He glanced at Balthamos, who was rolling his eyes.

They followed him, for lack of anything better to do, and saw that a small group of angels had entered via the carved archway. In contrast to Balthamos, these were powerful beings, and they seemed to be armed for war. The younger Balthamos hurried up to them, beaming widely in a way that only Baruch usually managed to coax from him in later years.

"Greetings, Rehael," he said to the leader, a tall and bright angel with radiant golden hair. "And, ah… your colleagues. I am sorry; there are so many of us, I do not yet know everyone's name. Can I help you? I would be glad to… to help you." He was gazing at the lead angel, Rehael, in a way that seemed  _ very  _ eager to be helpful indeed. His wings were fluttering.

Baruch tried, for Balthamos's sake, but his mouth started twitching before he could stop himself.

"Balthamos," he began. "Did you – "

"Don't," groaned Balthamos. A look over revealed that he had his face buried in Baruch's wing. "Oh, do not remind me of how stupid I was."

"I'm sure you weren't," Baruch protested. "He's very handsome. And very powerful, it appears?"

"Oh yes, he was all that,” Balthamos said in his most acidic tone, glaring daggers at the angel.

Rehael looked down at Balthamos. His wings swept out casually but did not retract, and the span made Balthamos look tiny in comparison. "I do not think you can be of any use to me. Is Vretil about?"

Baruch recognized the stiffening in Balthamos's shoulders, but the other angels didn't seem to notice.

"She is away, researching. But I know the library quite well by now; I am sure I can assist you with whatever you need."

There were a few looks between the angels, mostly contemptuous.

Rehael gave a long-suffering sigh. "Very well, you may try."

Balthamos smiled again, though far less brightly than before. "I will not disappoint you," he promised. "This way."

"I do not think I like your Rehael very much after all," Baruch said as they made their way after the others.

"Then, my dear, you have much better sense than I did. But those are strong words from you."

"He was cruel to you."

"I suppose he was." Balthamos tilted his head. "Though to him it probably seemed more like waving away an irritating gnat."

"Still."

Balthamos stopped, smiling at him more deeply than he had during this whole strange adventure.

"What?" said Baruch.

"I try not to think about this time," Balthamos admitted. "It was so long ago, and very little of it bears remembering. But it does not hurt so much to hear your thoughts of it. I should have told you more sooner."

"I want to know all you have to share," Baruch said. "But... I would not wish to force you to relive something that causes you pain.”

"Well, it does not seem we have much of a choice now. Let us go bear witness to more of my unrequited foolishness."

"Balthamos, can I tell you something that you will not like hearing?"

"Anything and always, my heart."

"...You were adorable."

They caught up in a circular opening in the endless stacks with a wide table in the middle, also carved from the same milky not-quite-stone. This too was stacked with papers and books, the largest of which Balthamos pulled out from the center and opened to a very, very long list in a language he would teach Baruch eleven thousand years later: the language of the angels. From what text he could make out from a distance and upside down, Baruch gathered that this was a sort of reference book.

"What are you looking for?" Balthamos forgot to be flustered, bending over the pages with familiar focus.

"A map, to begin with," said Rehael shortly.

Balthamos flipped over a great many pages at once, and a loud  _ thunk  _ sounded through the chamber as they flopped onto the table. "Ah, which world?"

Rehael rattled off a long string of numbers, many of which humans would have had no concept for. Balthamos had once told Baruch this was how angels kept track of the worlds.

"It is very romantic," he had said, "to refer to them as  _ the world of waterfalls  _ or  _ the world of the giant spiders _ , but not terribly practical." He said this despite, as Baruch well knew, referring to them in his own mind in just such a way. Balthamos might have protested any claim to a poetic soul, but he had one, all the same.

Balthamos yanked another book out and began paging through it. "Here you are," he said, sounding so terribly proud of himself that Baruch smiled again.

Rehael pushed in to bend over the map, forcing Balthamos to take several steps back to avoid being trampled.

"Feel free to take a look," said Balthamos with the first edge of sarcasm Baruch had heard from this version of him. It made him grin.

"Do not say a word," hissed the older Balthamos. Baruch smiled blandly at him.  _ Adorable,  _ he thought in Balthamos's direction but did not say. Balthamos groaned helplessly.

"Hmm," said Rehael. “How many humans live there?”

“About three thousand,” Balthamos said without having to check. “Loyal to the Authority. We have received many prayers – ”

“Which continent?” Rehael interrupted. “Where are our doorways?”

“All marked there in bold letters,” said Balthamos, the edge growing more obvious, “but I shall show you, nonetheless, as I have nothing better to do.”

Rehael looked at the places on the map he indicated, appearing to be fixing them in his mind.

“Very well,” he said. “Good work.”

All of Balthamos's annoyance melted away at the minute praise; he looked vaguely starstruck. His hands flexed nervously, and apparently to stop that he intertwined his long, ink-stained fingers, but he kept fiddling with them anyway. Baruch knew that particular habit well.

"I'm… pleased to help," he managed as Rehael turned to go. Before he could take a step Balthamos blurted, "Are you going there to fight the heretics?"

Next to Baruch, his Balthamos explained in a low voice, “Another name for Xaphania and her followers. It was more common before the war.” He looked a great deal more serious than he had only a moment ago. His thoughts were withdrawn, so Baruch couldn’t see the reason for the sudden change, though he had a few guesses.

The angels, presumably dismissing this as a foolish question, said nothing. They swept away, leaving Balthamos still fidgeting by the table.

"Will it be very dangerous?" he asked the empty air, then sighed and looked down.

"Oh, Balthamos," Baruch said softly.

"It's only going to get worse." The words hardly seemed directed at Baruch, but to himself, haunted.

The younger Balthamos, casting his lovelorn eyes around aimlessly, focused on the book once more. He frowned and tilted his head in thought. Then he went back to staring after the departed angels, but this time he didn't seem lovelorn; he looked curious, and uneasy.

"What did you see?" Baruch asked.

Balthamos spoke quietly. “The beginning of a long fall.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my friends on Discord who suggested/inspired Balthamos having a mentor figure!

The past version of Balthamos hovered around the table for a little longer, doing more research that only seemed to unsettle him more, before he shook himself and disappeared into the stacks again. Shortly after he left, another angel sailed through the archway.

She was considerably older than Rehael and his fellows, and walked with a brisk step and her small pearl-grey wings folded rather lopsidedly behind her.

"Balthamos!" she called. "Where are you hiding? I have two weeks worth of transcriptions that need to be done at once. I sincerely hope I do not find you brooding over more human  _ art  _ again – "

"I'm here!" Balthamos said hastily, bounding out from a pile of scrolls. He had an ink blot on his cheek now too. Baruch valiantly fought down the urge to call him adorable again.

"I was getting ahead on recataloguing the Authority's victories," he added virtuously.

"Ah, very good. Speaking of busy work, I just saw Rehael and his merry band of idiots on their way out," said the other angel. "How much did they knock over showing off their wings trying to impress you, or more likely themselves, and how long will it take us to clean up?"

"They knocked nothing over," Balthamos objected, but his lips quirked. "They restrained their attempts to be impressive to the entryway."

She snorted. "Well, perhaps after five millennia they have finally gained some sense."

"Perhaps," sighed Balthamos, but it was clear he wasn't thinking about sense.

"Wherever they are bound, I am sure they will prevail," she said kindly.

Baruch watched their conversation with interest; it was clear that she vastly outranked him, but this was far different than the way he had seen Balthamos act in a similar situation, around Xaphania. He treated her with respect and not a little awe, and every so often her ancient face would twitch slightly when he accidentally let a sarcastic remark slip, but there was considerable distance between them. They were friendly allies, nothing more. But this angel and the younger Balthamos seemed easier with each other; he felt as though he were watching old friends bickering, or an aunt with a favorite nephew.

"Now fetch a pen and ink. This will take some time."

Balthamos bowed, but hesitated before he left. "Vretil?" he said.

"Yes?" She was already scribbling what seemed to be some kind of shorthand.

"Do you… do you know what their mission is?"

"I have made it my business not to care what anyone's mission is unless they barge in here requiring my assistance. Why?"

"Oh, well, it was only that I noticed… Rehael wished for some information about a world, so I provided it to him. But I cannot fathom why he was interested in that world, specifically. He is a powerful warrior…" Balthamos flushed a little. "Yet the world he was asking about is nearly uninhabited. Only a few humans, farmers and craftsmen, no one and nothing that is threatening to us. There  _ was _ a heretical presence there, but that was several years ago, and they do not typically return to their previous haunts until much more time has passed."

"Perhaps they are changing their patterns, and Rehael is scouting for us," Vretil said, obviously untroubled. "If so we will find out soon, but until then do not concern yourself with it. We have plenty of worries without having to dig for them, I can assure you.”

Balthamos bowed again and left. Vretil didn't seem to hear him, but he muttered as he went, "They were heavily armed for a scouting mission…"

Before Baruch could turn to Balthamos and ask him about this, the room seemed to shudder and then go hazy. The world began to fade out, what little color there was swimming together into a muddy blur.

“Balthamos!” He reached out and caught his hand, holding on tightly even as everything, including Balthamos, faded to white. But he could still feel him, and a few dizzying moments later, color and form returned to the world. Balthamos was clutching his hand, blinking and disoriented, and they were in the same room as before, though the light had shifted slightly.

“What was that?”

Balthamos looked up. “This is a different memory.”

Baruch followed his gaze. The young Balthamos, hovering in the air with a book open in his hands, looked roughly the same, but the ink splotches were in different places now, so Baruch supposed this was a different day.

Balthamos's small wings were perfectly suited to this place; he could hover and fly throughout the huge yet cramped room with ease, darting in between the stacks without fear of knocking anything over. He was so at ease here, safe and free from the cares of later years, the constant fear of being a hunted renegade angel. Baruch ached all over again for him. Balthamos didn't talk about it often, but Baruch didn't think he regretted his decision to rebel against the Authority. Still, it couldn't have been easy to leave the only home he had ever known, particularly when it seemed so peaceful.

It was strange, now that he thought about it, that such a place could have existed in the heart of the Kingdom. Perhaps it was the tint of Balthamos’s memories, that relaxed air Baruch had noticed earlier, but this place felt almost… cozy. Cluttered in a way that he didn’t think angels would have approved, and perfectly quiet other than the rustle of paper and the occasional beat of wings.

“Vretil’s doing,” Balthamos said, answering the question in his thoughts. “She had… a different way of doing things than the other high-ranking angels. They thought her very odd.” His voice sounded strange and far-off, but there was no mistaking the notes of warmth.

“You were very fond of her, weren’t you?” Baruch asked softly.

Balthamos said nothing for a moment. More memories swirled through his mind, but too many and too ancient for Baruch to catch any details, even if he wasn't already withdrawing to give Balthamos some privacy.

“If I put it in human terms,” Balthamos said at last, “I suppose you might say that she was the closest thing that I had to a mother. It isn’t a perfect analogy by any stretch: there is less… weight to such things for angels. It’s different for us. But she – looked after me, and I admired her. We were friends.” This last was so quiet that Baruch could hardly hear it.

“She was your mentor, then. Your guardian.”

Balthamos's eyes were sad again. He hadn't let go of Baruch's hand. “Fitting, yes.”

The younger him snapped the book shut, glanced around, and then flew upwards. Curiously, Baruch spread his wings and followed. (He didn't have to worry about knocking anything over either; he could exist in this place, but he could not interact with it. His wings passed straight through any obstacles.)

Balthamos flew all the way up past the cloudy haze of the ceiling, disappearing into it and then emerging in a small clear zone with a window set into the wall. It was barred, the entire structure all cut from one smooth piece of that glowing material. Balthamos settled himself onto the window ledge, folding his wings and hugging his knees and leaning his head against the wall, staring outside.

Whichever world they were in, it was night, and the cosmos spread out before Balthamos in a glittering tableau. He watched it, utterly enraptured.

“The Chariot moved a great deal more in those times,” the older Balthamos said from behind him. He watched his younger self with an almost unreadable expression. “The worlds outside were changing all the time. I found it fascinating.”

Almost unreadable, but not to Baruch. “Balthamos,” he said gently. “You know that I would not wish you any different, don't you?”

“I do,” said Balthamos. “Though it had occurred to me to wonder if you did not wish me different because you were not aware I  _ could  _ be. That I was, at one time.”

“You are thousands of years old,” Baruch pointed out. “It would have been strange to me if you were  _ not  _ different at some point. I like this version of you very well, but he is not yet the angel I love, though I see him in you still.”

Balthamos smiled, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

They turned back to watching the young angel, who was now distracted from his stargazing by the distant ground below, and was trying to make out the dark shapes without being undignified and pressing his face close to the window.

"Do you have any idea why we're here?" Baruch asked. "Any idea what might have happened to us?"

"Not any good ones," Balthamos said, sounding more himself: that was, annoyed that he didn't know everything. "I suppose a powerful angel could trap us both in my memories, but an enemy angel would surely simply kill or capture us instead, and why would one of ours do it? It doesn't make any sense. The only other option is…" He fell silent.

"Yes?" Baruch prodded.

Balthamos hesitated. "Well… our connection."

Their link, requiring little to no effort to maintain and stretching across vast distances, was a rarity; indeed Balthamos did not know of anything else like it, though their information on the angels of Heaven was hardly up-to-date.

Theirs had sprung into being a few hundred years ago, when Baruch's human life had ended and he became an angel. Hardly the most pleasant memory, yet he would never forget how it felt when Balthamos, in his desperation, touched his dying mind and let Baruch feel for himself the endless depth of his love. That connection, solidified into permanence during his transformation, was one of the greatest joys and comforts of his life.

“It should not have caused any problems, but then again, no angels have ever maintained a link this long, as far as I know. We may be trapped in a sort of feedback spiral; the longer we are connected the deeper we fall into our minds, or at least one of our minds."

Gravity seemed to pull Baruch off balance; he stared at Balthamos.

"Are you saying we will be trapped here forever unless we break the connection?  _ Can  _ we break it?" He would as soon give up his wings.

"I don't know," Balthamos said. "I have never tried, or wanted to try. But this is all speculation. It could be something entirely different. Perhaps the world we were in has invisible telepathic caterpillars that cause you to relive your worst memories. Who can say? We encounter stranger things every day. I do not want to rush into a solution that may not even work, particularly when it is so permanent and, and so…" He stopped, his voice thick.

"We'll find a way out," Baruch promised. "That will be our last resort, and in the meantime we can try other methods.”

“Such as?” Balthamos said, obviously trying to keep a frightened edge out of his voice.

Baruch squeezed his hand. "Such as testing the limits of your memory, perhaps." So saying, he let go and flew down to where the other Balthamos still sat, stepped with care over his legs, even though he suspected he couldn't touch him even if he wanted to, and walked right through the wall.

“Baruch!” he heard Balthamos hiss behind him, as though he expected the memory of the Authority to swoop down and destroy them. Reluctantly, he followed.

“I adore you, but this is not your best idea.” He was hovering in mid-air nervously. It was chilly out here, though they didn't feel the cold as much as humans would have, and Baruch couldn't help but think longingly of the cozy hollow they were lying in out in the real world – at least, hopefully they still were – with their wings folded around each other.

“It’s only a memory, dearest. Nothing will hurt us.”

“I am not worried about a cloud strangling us, I am worried about  _ you.  _ You are planning to fly into the clouds until you're beyond my past self's awareness, aren't you? That is…” He gestured helplessly. “Blank space. It does not exist. You don't know what will happen.”

“We might wake up,” Baruch said, angling off towards the other side of the citadel. He spotted bright figures flying amongst the clouds here and there. The farther they got from the library window, the blurrier the world became, like a smudged painting.

“Yes, or we might be wiped from existence."

“We have to try something,” Baruch said firmly. “I do not particularly wish to stand around watching you relive events that clearly pain you.”

Balthamos grumbled, but he wasn't especially keen on that prospect either, so at last he sighed. “Very well. But we turn back at the first sign of something wrong.”

Baruch agreed, and they flew on, past the smudged borders of Balthamos's memory and into the haze beyond. Instead of growing darker it grew lighter, fainter and fainter until they were flying in the same pure white void that Baruch had first woken up in. He could no longer see Balthamos, though he still felt his hand and heard his thoughts.

They kept flying forward, or at least he thought they were flying forward; getting a sense of direction in that blankness was nearly impossible. His thoughts began to grow hazy as well, though it was hard to tell if they were reaching some sort of boundary or if it was simply disorientation. He was about to stop and ask Balthamos if he was experiencing the same thing when the world slid out of focus and Balthamos's hand slipped out of his.

He shouted, and realized he couldn't hear his own voice. Wheeling around, he shot in the direction Balthamos should have been, but met only empty air.

Flying in circles, trying to call out, he saw the world grow ever brighter, until at last it swallowed him whole.


End file.
